LtCmdr Connor Dewitt - Shut up!
Tim
((Corridor near Main Engineering, USS Khitomer))
The thing nobody had told Jenna about being joined was how loud it could get when she was trying to think.
She walked the corridor toward Main Engineering with a PADD in one hand and a part recquisition she had read four times and still did not fully trust in the other. The shuttle, the one that had come back from a survey run with a scorched dorsal coupling and an attitude, needed a replacement plasma flow regulator. She had the part number and the authorization. She had everything she needed.
She also had Coval.
He was three four back, a flight mechanic out of the Trillian yards who had apparently never once in his life finished a sentence before starting two more, and who always surfaced the instant Jenna got within smelling distance of machine oil and ionized coolant. She did not remember his life so much as feel the enthusiasm arrive ahead of her.
oO It’s a regulator. We get the regulator. We leave. We install it. Oo
Oh, sure, sure, sure, but which regulator, that’s the question, isn’t it, because if the flow rating’s off by even a hair you’ll get the harmonic chatter in the manifold and then you’re not fixing a shuttle, you’re chasing a ghost. And ghosts, Jenna… They cost you a whole afternoon.
Jenna pressed her lips together and kept walking. Eight months joined and she still had not learned the trick the older joined Trill talked about so easily. The one where past hosts were a quiet resource instead of a shouting committee. Coval was not quiet. He had never been. He was, she suspected, the reasong the Prix symbiont had been described to her as spirited.
The doors to main engineering parted and the noises of repairs rolled over her. Somewhere behind her sternum, Coval practically purred.
oO Behave! Oo
She stepped inside, scanning the room until she found the one still point in all that motion: a Vulcan officer at a diagnostic station. Lera Michaels. Jenna had never worked a shift beside her, but she knew her face and more usefully she knew her reputation.
The young Trill crossed the deck, arranging her face into something she hoped would read competent and friendly.
Prix: Lietuenant. Ensign Jenna Prix, Flight Deck Officer. ::lifting the PADD a fraction:: I’m hoping engineering can save me a very long evening. I’ve got a shuttle down in Bay One. The plasma flow regulator’s cooked. I have the requisition and the part number, I just need to know if there’s one I can sign out from you tonight.
She took a breath and held the PADD out, the requisition open on the screen.
oO See? Polite. Efficient. We are an efficient person who is leaving soon. Oo
A 4400-series regulator… Now that’s a beautiful piece of hardware, they don’t …
oO Nobody asked! Oo
It was the wrong moment to lose the thread, because Michaels was already answering and Jenna had to physically refocus to catch it.
Michaels: Response
Whatever Lera had said, the result was a direction and a walk. A supply closet somewhere off main engineering. It was the kind of overstocked engineering nook that existed on every ship and it smelled like Coval’s idea of heaven. Jenna fell into step beside the Vulcan. That was her first mistace. The second she stopped concentrating on standing still, the flight mechanic got his hands on the wheel.
Ask her about manifold tolerances… A 4400 has tighter…
oO No. Oo
Ask her, ask her, because a ship this class runs a tighter band than the spec sheets admit and a good engineer always knows the real number, go on…
Prix: ::sighing:: So what’s your real manifold tolerance on the flow regulator? Because the spec sheet says one thing, but a ship this class runs tighter, right? You’ve probably a number you actually trust…
She heard the words leaving her mouth at a speed that was not hers. Too fast and too many. The cadence of a man who had been dead for over a century. She shut her mouth with an effort she hoped was not visible to the Vulcan.
Michaels: Response
They reached the closet and Jenna made herself slow down and take a breath. She had maybe four clean seconds before Coval found the install confession she had been carrying and decided to deliver it for her.
Prix: Okay… Full disclosure, and I am only saying this because the alternative is a board of injury and frankly I respect you too much for that. I can fly a shuttle, I can make repairs. I have never installed a plasma flow regulator all by myself. I've never pulled a regulator exactly never, well, I have never, the hands have,… I mean… It’s complicated…
Michaels: Response
oO Stop talking, stop! Oo
Tell her about the breach! One glove, half a flashlight and the whole nacelle screaming…
oO Coval! Oo
It’s a great story, she’ll love it, Vulcans love a competent anecdote
Prix: ::shouting:: Shut up!
Michaels: Response
TAG/TBC
Ens Jenna PrixExecutive Officer
USS Khitomer
A239901CD3